93_Liz Kelly === Liz: think, you know, I long for these kinds of nuanced conversations, you know, and to be able to have those at a, a cultural level, and this is a great challenge of the awakening, what we call, you know, and I keep saying that I want to be clear, like I'm calling this the sacred feminine, which is what it is for me, you know, it's, I think it's okay if, if you have different language to put around that, but it's the messiness of that energy rising and wanting to express itself in a system that is still very rigid and patriarchal. And it isn't easy to have those nuanced conversations. And I think even the notion that we all aren't capable of having those, which I think is one of the reasons that is used. Well, we can't talk about this because it's dangerous is, you know, that is patriarchal in it of itself too. That it seems that there's a hierarchy though. Like there's just a lot of assumptions in there that it's interesting to question. The thought also occurred to me that if we were to really slow down and have these deeply nuanced conversations, like the process that you just described is thinking all that through. But to actually have that in more of a cultural context, how much slower we'd all have to move and the wheels would fall off the capitalist bus like that. Like it can, it can sustain itself because the system sustains itself on not looking and not pausing and not having deep nuanced conversations. You've got to go to the new jerk. Yes or no. Now let me move. And keep this train going. === Monica: Welcome to the Revelation Project Podcast. I'm Monica Rogers, and this podcast is intended to disrupt the trance of unworthiness and to guide women, to remember and reveal the truth of who we are. We say that life is a revelation project and what gets revealed gets healed. Hello everyone. And welcome to another episode of the revelation project podcast. Today I am with Liz Childs Kelly. And Liz and I had an incredible opportunity to record an episode on her podcast, which is very beloved in the sacred feminine space called Home to Her. So it was a complete honor to be her guest. And of course I wanted to invite her on this podcast because I feel like Liz is such a channel for the sacred feminine. And I'm going to give you a little bit more background on her bio, and then I have no doubt we're going to create a magical episode today. So Liz Childs, Kelly is a writer, sacred feminine researcher and educator. She's a community builder and an initiated priestess in the 13 moons lineage. And she is also the host of the Home to Her podcast, which is dedicated to amplifying the voices of the sacred, feminine. She is also the cohost of the Revelry series of online events, which invite women from around the world to participate in ecstatic embodied celebrations of the gifts of each season. And she's an instructor in the social change platform Advaya's upcoming 12 week online course, the call of the wild feminine Liz is in the process of completing her first book titled Home to Her. Reclaiming the ancient wisdom of the sacred feminine. She is a mother of two and currently lives in central Virginia USA on the ancestral lands of the Monacan people. Hey Liz. Liz: Hi. So good to be here. Monica: Oh, it's so great to have you. And of course I'm like immediately checking in about Advaya's. Did I say that right? Liz: You got it right that time. It's Advaya's, Monica: Advaya, awesome. And yes. So if you don't mind, I would love to just start off by really acknowledging how much I have loved listening to your own podcast, because I've been learning so much, not only as a podcaster, but I've also been just loving. So many of the topics that you cover and. I wanted our listeners to get a deeper sense of who you are and why the sacred feminine is so powerful and important to you. Liz: Yeah. And first, I just want to say the feeling is mutual of your show. I feel like I get so much from your guests and also just from you and your presence. So it's just a real honor to be. So would it be helpful if I started from the beginning, you know, like how I, how the sacred, feminine thing it came into being in my life, but that'd be useful. Monica: I would love that. And if that feels like a natural starting point, let's do it. Liz: It's is and maybe it's because you and I had this wonderful conversation, not too long ago. And there were so many of, you know, for your listeners, you know, you shared your, your backstory a bit with me, and there were all these bells going off for me. That was so, you know, like I know that I recognize that that's so familiar for me. So maybe that's why I'm feeling like that would be a good place to start, but it, before I got on this journey and there was a very definite beginning point to this journey, or at least one that felt like it was, I was very much in the business world and I had my own consulting company. It was a marketing human resources consulting company, but really, you know, I think it's more useful to say it's client service. You know, my job was just to make everybody else feel good and look good. And we, women are really good at, you know, falling into that role. So I was all in and I was all in. I was extremely ambitious and had really bought into the idea that my success as a woman was, it was important that it happened in the business world because that meant it had value. And that continued even after my first child was born, I was going back to work. There was no way I would be a stay at home mom. I didn't get a graduate degree for this there's a turning point here. So stay with me. If that feels offensive to you. I was all in and I went to a business conference. This was probably about eight years ago and I was there to win new clients. And I had dressed the parts. I went out and bought super expensive shoes and a really ridiculously expensive handbag. And I had a personal shopper helped me get all of it because I, I was very much trying to look the part of success. And so I go to this business conference and there was a woman that was speaking there and her name is Dr. Elizabeth Lindsay and she's a national geographic fellow and an anthropologist. And she was just there to kind of kick the thing off there's 5,000 women at this thing, by the way. And I'm in the very, you know, one of the very back rowes, cause that's where they put the people who don't have big corporations. And she starts talking about indigenous wisdom and just all the things that she's learned from her travels, which I knew nothing about. And then she started talking about Polynesian Wayfinders. And so these are sailors, these master navigators that could. Thousands of miles between islands without any modern instrumentation. And this was just fascinating to me, but then she said something to the effect of, they were so in tune with their hearts that they could navigate for thousands of miles, just by watching the way the waves broke across the front of the boat. And something happened to me when she said that I, a physical thing that had never happened before, but I started getting hot, like right from my feet all the way up, my body was getting very hot and tingly. And then the room started to like shimmer and recede. And then I couldn't hear anything for a minute. And I'm looking around at the people beside me, like, what is happening? Is this happening to you? And of course not, you know, they're just staring ahead, like it's every other day, but it was, it's so hard to find the metaphor, the language to describe what this was. You know, it was like a rip in the time-space continuum or something to reference back to the future. I don't know, but it was, it was extraordinary and it was very much a before and after moment in my life because it felt good. I should clarify that it was a beautiful feeling. And I felt like all of a sudden I had just seen that there was so much more to the world than this very rigid, uh, rational, logical, businessy worlds that I had been living in. And I wanted more, I had to have more, I knew that this could not be just a one-time. Yeah. I had no idea by the way that the sacred feminine, that when we talk about the divine feminine, that she's so often associated with intuition and inner knowing, which of course that's what Dr. Lindsay was speaking about that day. And that's what happened to my body. I didn't realize that until later. So I didn't go out looking for the divine feminine at that point. I just thought I need to know more. So I started reading about the Wayfinders and this was before Moana, by the way, in case anybody's got kids and has seen that movie. And then that led me into indigenous wisdom and reading about shamanism and just going anywhere that I could to find information. And in the midst of all this, my second child was born. So I was about four months pregnant, uh, at that business conference that day. And I chose to have him unmedicated and part because of some of the things that I've been learning from this indigenous wisdom. And so that experience of birth with him was sort of like the second piece of the puzzle. It was awful. It was just the most horrifyingly painful experience of my life. And it was beautiful, just absolutely incredibly beautiful. I learned so much about what our bodies are capable of and the power of surrender and just allowing this force of life to move through us. And so after that moment, I sat down and I started thinking about spiritual teachings that I have absorbed. And, and I was genuinely curious why, even in the readings that I had to. Since the business conference, I hadn't come across anybody talking about the spiritual nature of childbirth. And I thought that was curious because it was the most spiritual experience I'd ever had in my life and what could be more profound than bringing life into the world. And I knew I wasn't the only one that had had this experience, but I, I wasn't hearing people talk about it. And one day I was just holding my baby and it hit me. Oh, well, who's been writing the books that I've been reading it's men. And, you know, if I go back, even before that I'm flirting with spiritual teachings for a lot of my life, the preachers that I grew up with were men. The gods for the most part were men, my meditation teachers before that were men and men could not tell me about what they had not experienced. They couldn't. And I want to be clear that I'm sorry. In the vast body of indigenous literature, people are talking about the spiritual nature of childbirth. I hadn't found it. I think that's what was important for me. And so that was kind of the turning point. Then when I realized, oh, this cannot be right. There's no way that this is right, that we're not talking about the spiritual experiences of women, or even to, just to extend that this idea that God is male. I call, I hope I can curse Monica. I call bullshit. I call it Monica: I will curse with you. I'll call bullshit on that all day long. Liz: And it that's what I was like, no, this isn't right. This cannot be right. And I knew right then that this was, and I don't ascribe any more. I think to the idea of this is my only purpose in life, but I knew right then that this was a big purpose. It wasn't. Any more to build a business, to make money, to achieve some sort of success to have my ego stroked in that way. That was not why I was here. It was to find this because it was missing part of me too. And I knew even then that it wasn't going to be just for me, that I had to do something with it that I was supposed to share it with other people, even though I didn't know what it was yet. Monica: Liz, I want to go back to the feeling that you had because I'm learning as I go, because of course, these are not things that we talk about in our culture about what is the divine field light? How do we know? And it, I think oftentimes we're like looking for something up out there when really it's an inner world and it's understanding if we can breathe through it. Birth. Yeah. What is the most important part of birth is breathe, breathe, and the breath. There's all these ways that were not brought in touch with. The remarkable, hidden in plain sight ways that the divine feminine and the divine is always kind of speaking to us or through us. And I love what you said about what it felt like for you. Because again, I think we think, oh, it feels like that, but for everybody it's a different experience. And so I love that you were talking about, it was like in that moment, there was a before and there was an after, and that's what I call. One thing, I call a revelation. It's like, you've got the veil lifted. Liz: Yeah. Monica: Even though it was for this brief moment, it was like a goddess wink that you got it at a cellular level. And what I also want to point to here is that often those are those feelings that we get through our body as indicators of like, yes, this indicators of go this way. Indicators of something important is here that resonates with you on a soul level. And you're made of the same stuff, which is why it resonates. So again, for our listeners, those of you that are still kind of, and I bring this up because it was so funny, I was in a small group of women. I'm learning to read the Akashic records. And I was in a small group of women last night and we were just sharing with each other, what our process is, and I couldn't believe how different it was for every single woman there. So I just want to, I just want to really highlight that first of all, and also go back to, you know, what you said about just that piece about the birth with your son. And I love did you read, um, See No Stranger by Valerie Kaur? Liz: I did. I love that book Monica: And the laboring, the labor and love. Yeah, because there is something there about our spiritual experience as a women that feels so sacred. And so important, especially now as so much is coming up in the world. And we have so little tolerance, we're not necessarily trained to labor in love, all of us. And I, I think that there's something there too, just about the spiritual practice or the experience of surrendering to love and the labor that it actually is to surrender to it because it's hard, it's painful. Liz: It's so hard. I totally agree. Yeah. I'm thinking of, you know, thinking of the birth itself and that I had a doula. She wasn't able to be there, but. Told me, you know, you'll you'll cause you're trying to imagine what this pain is going to be like. You can, it's not possible to imagine it until you're in it. She's like you're going to, you're going to get to this deer in the headlights kind of place. And like, I don't know what that is. And I did though. You get there where you're like, I I'm out of all of my arguments, I'm out of all of my strategies to avoid what I don't want to be happening. I've got nothing left. I can do nothing. I just, I can't even tense up anymore. I have just got it. I've got to, I've got to let go. And of course, when we let go is when the magic starts to happen, because now we're in partnership with the, you know, I call her the sacred feminine, you know, whatever you want to call her, this amazing life force energy, Monica: This amazing life force energy. Yeah. So, so more on that because. We talk about the sacred feminine, and I'd love to know like more about who is she for you. Liz: Yeah. I hold that question daily and have, have given myself permission for that answer to change and shift. So, but it's such a, it's such a huge question for me. And first of all, why don't we just have a good belly laugh at trying to define the divine? I mean, (laughing). Can't you just imagine, like there's some higher force. Who's just like energetically patting us on our cute little heads. Like, oh, aren't you cute this all out with your little brain. Monica: It's so true. It's so vast. It's so expansive. It's so impossible. Liz: Yeah, I can, you know, I, I have, I give this answer could be so big, but I'll, I can, I can break it down in a few, a few categories which really resonate with me and have continued to resonate with me through the years. And one of those that came forward for me right away, probably because I was escaping that the business world and trying to, you know, reinhabited my body, but I was still very much of this rational, logical. Uh, Western way of being, I wanted, I wanted some facts about like, you know, so I had a hunch that like, God, wasn't just a man that was not good enough for me. I needed some proof, like, show me, you know, don't give me this woo woo stuff, which is hysterical because now I'm like, like really you're studying the Akashic records. Let's talk about that afterwards. I want to know I'm like all the woo, send me all the woo Monica: I tried to hide it for so long. And I'm just like, just surrender Monica, Liz: Just let it. Yeah. But at the time it was so important for me that I found the, her story that we didn't have. And it's out there. It's out there even more now than when I first began this journey. But I think that's one of the first things that I like to tell people if they want to understand who she is. And that is that she is a historical fact, like there's just no denying it. It is there you most likely were cheated out of this. It's your birthright. You deserve it, but she is. She's a fact. And she's not just a fact in certain cultures, there's a lot of information out there about, uh, European roots of the goddess, which is fantastic, but I am certainly not an expert on global anything, but I can say that every culture that I've looked at has an aspect of the divine feminine, very present at some point in their history. And sometimes it's not that far back. And so that's an important agenda that I think I would add to she's a historical fact, because there can be a way of lending this story of like she's in her past. And for those of us who are of European descent, who were really. You know, our, our way back ancestors were affected by the, the rise of Christianity. That's true for indigenous populations that escaped colonization for a period of time. Uh, she lived on for much longer. And for those people who have living indigenous traditions, she's never gone anywhere. And there's some really obvious examples of this too, or around the world. I mean, Hinduism, you know, the goddess has been there continuously for quite some time. So she is though this historical fact, and she's a lived reality for many, many people. And even some of us who may think she's not, you know, if, if you've got a love for Mary or you had a grandma that was praying the rosary and that's, she, she's the divine feminine, all signs point to that. So that's, that's kind of the first piece of how I experienced her. And the second. I don't like to put her too much in the abstract, but as a spiritual idea. And so one way that I think is kind of fun to approach the spiritual idea is to think of everything, you know, about patriarchal systems, everything you know about what they love. And she's probably the opposite. She's probably going to value the opposite. So for fun, like what do you, what what might come to mind when you think about patriarchal systems? Like what, what really makes them thrive? Monica: So I go right to capitalism and consumerism. Liz: Yeah. That monitorization of something, which is also related to hierarchy, right. Because capitalism thrives on that idea of a competition and the may, the best person, when it also treats. Our resources as resources. Let me look at, even use that word. It treats the gifts of life as resources to be exploited as opposed to right. Monica: It commoditizes those yeah. Those resources. Liz: Yeah. So the opposite of that would be valuing the sacredness of all life reciprocity, understanding ourselves in relationship with not just each other, but the natural world and everything in it. And honoring that relationship because the preservation of that relationship and the continuation of that delicate balance is the most important, not profit. Monica: My father used to use this expression. He would say Moniker, cause he, you know, was from Boston. So he, he would say Moniker, do you know what a cynic is? And I'd say. Oh dad, you know, he had told me a million times, but I'd love to hear him say it. He'd say a cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. And for me that when you said that, you know about when we were talking about capitalism, that's what came up for me was that patriarchy knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing, that there's something there, there, you know? Liz: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think of other things with that go hand in hand with capitalism and patriarchy too, but things like order and control, like we really want everything to that. We love our data and we like, you know, numbers and things to be put in boxes. And you know, the Greeks, one of the many faces of the divine feminine for the Greeks was chaos, which is where creativity comes from. This is glorious. What you talk about the mess, you know, glorious mess of chaos. It's it's the opposite. Monica: Yeah. And the patriarch, it doesn't like nuances. It likes black and white. Yes. It lacks right and wrong. Liz: Yes. Right. Judgment. Uh, whereas I think of the sacred, feminine valuing oneness. And also I felt like she told me this long ago through the voice of the ocean. The answer is always yes. It's yes. And yes. Monica: And yes. And yes, Liz: Because you can find an element of truth. And I know that's hard. It's a hard thing to think about if you put that in the context of a lot of the problems that we're we're facing right now. But I know for myself, when I'm trying to lock really hard into a binary system, I have like, it's either this or that. Like I have, I have lost sight of her. Um, it's a time to take a step back Monica: This brings up for something for me. And it, you know, I I'm like, are you really gonna say this right now? Um, but it brings up, Liz: Well, now you have to, Monica: I know it brings up something that's a really fresh kind of wound for me, which was like, I kind of hadn't didn't have enough clarity of the other day. And I was positing these two very different things on Facebook. And what I was doing was. Trying to find a relationship between what I found offensive in kind of mandates or government institutions, deciding what we do with our bodies. And I pissed a lot of people off. I mean, I, you know, which in itself we're trained to be pretty pleasing and polite, so that just, you know, activated the shit out of me. We'll see, seeing us, we're putting an explicit on this anyway, Liz, I'm just going to let write. Right. So, but, but what, what came up for me was everybody the value or what I loved about it. Wasn't the discomfort. Even though, like in hindsight, I can see that even that was tremendously valuable for me. But what came up was everybody was going to the logic and the flawed logic. And the, some people even said words like, oh God, what was somebody used a word intellectually dishonest. And I thought that is so fascinating, but it was all up in the head. And I was thinking, you know, why I keep avoiding and stepping over is that I have a gut feeling about this, but my whole life I've been taught that my feelings and my intuition are not a basis for having something be valued. You know what I mean? And so what I really brought up for me was wait a minute. And I took responsibility for the messiness of my post, but what I was really talking about. What's happening with abortion in Texas and what's happening with the vaccine mandates. And of course, like everybody was like polarized. And all I said was in the post, it was more of an inquiry, like a, like let's wonder together kind of thing. And it was like, everybody was so upset. And again, in hindsight, would I do it differently? Yes. But there was this way that I just got to see all of this stuff that I wouldn't have seen otherwise. And also get back in touch with my right to trust my intuition for my body, my self, right. It just reminded me of all of those ways. The divine feminine encourages us to not abandon ourselves, to forgive ourselves when we're messy to allow something else to bloom in that place. And. That's what that brought up when you talked about the mess again was, I was like, yeah, I took yesterday was really messy for me. And yet it was one of the most powerful days and it was such a clarifying day for me because it allowed me if I was able to just put other people's judgment of me aside for a moment and not worry about everybody else and just keep allowing myself to process recover, take responsibility for what was mine, leave behind what wasn't mine. That to me is like another aspect of the divine feminine that I've just learned to value so much is like this. I can trust myself to be in both. I can trust myself to be in. The binaries of the world and find my way back to love, to love of myself and love of others. Liz: I love that. And I think, you know, I long for these kinds of nuanced conversations, you know, and to be able to have those at a, a cultural level, and this is a great challenge of the awakening, what we call, you know, and I keep saying that I want to be clear, like I'm calling this the sacred feminine, which is what it is for me, you know, it's, I think it's okay if, if you have different language to put around that, but it's the messiness of that energy rising and wanting to express itself in a system that is still very rigid and patriarchal. And it isn't easy to have those nuanced conversations. And I think even the notion that we all aren't capable of having those, which I think is one of the reasons that is used. Well, we can't talk about this because it's dangerous is, you know, that is patriarchal in it of itself too. That it seems that there's a hierarchy though. Like there's just a lot of assumptions in there that it's interesting to question. The thought also occurred to me that if we were to really slow down and have these deeply nuanced conversations, like the process that you just described is thinking all that through. But to actually have that in more of a cultural context, how much slower we'd all have to move and the wheels would fall off the capitalist bus like that. Like it can, it can sustain itself because the system sustains itself on not looking and not pausing and not having deep nuanced conversations. You've got to go to the new jerk. Yes or no. Now let me move. And keep this train going. Monica: And the system thrives on separation and war and pitting people against each other and separation. And it's just, it's it's um, I, I feel like this time in our evolution, and I know Liz that you and I have shared this before, but like this great time of revelation, and I think they're happening so close together, again, like the pains of labor that there's this way that like we're being shown over and over again. So we can see it more clearly the patterns that are just not serving us and continue to divide us versus us really start to see how to do this differently. Like the thing we haven't tried yet, you know, So I want to kind of. Dig more deeply into a few of the, into a few of the amazing projects that you're up to right now. And I'd love for you to tell us just anything that comes up for you when I say your projects. Liz: Hmm. It's funny because there are a couple that popped up right away. So one thing I've been working on for quite some time, and I'm just going to go ahead and put it out there because this is an impetus for me to get it done. Is this, I've been working on a book about the sacred feminine for many years now. And I actually finished a draft pre pandemic that I felt was really solid. And then everything got turned upside down and, you know, bad ways, but in this way, in a good way, I things happen. And I was able to go back and look at it in a different way, but that's a project really near and dear to my heart that I'm hoping to finish this year because. It's what I wished I had when I started on this journey. I wanted so badly for somebody to take my hand and be like, this is what, this is what she is. This is where you can start. And still, you know, as you're transitioning out of this Mrs. Business and business way of being in the world, you know, this is how, this is how to get there. So that one's really important to me. And now that my kids are finally back in school, I can, I can work on it, which is exciting. Monica: So exciting. Liz: Yeah. And the other thing that came to mind is this event that I'm hosting, I think Trista had been on the show before. I feel like he has. Yeah, I thought so. Monica: I'll put the link in the show notes for those of you that want to listen. Go ahead. Yeah. Trista. Liz: Yeah, a girl, God books, should we both know and love adore. So Trista and, uh, Iris Eve, who's the woman behind She on the Tip of Her Tongue. If you are on social media and at all a fan of women's art and the sacred feminine, you've probably come across her. So we are, co-hosting an event called Revelry, which is a celebration of the fall Equinox. Uh, and it's, it's meant to be a way to gather around the world with our, our people, you know, not just, and it's not just because of the pandemic. I think it's, I've learned I have a Facebook group and I've learned and heard from many of the women there that they feel quite alone. They are in a community where they just are not connected to people who are interested in this. And that's how I felt when I started. So the idea that this event is. Start to remember how we celebrate in this more feminine way to move to the rhythm of the seasons and nature. This is the divine feminine to me is so much about nature and the rhythms of nature and the cycles of life, and to find our reasons to celebrate because they're there. They're always there. If we are willing to look, we can find a million reasons to not celebrate for sure to at times there's a lot to despair about, but if we're alive and we're breathing and we can look out our window and see something living and beautiful, that alone is a reason to celebrate. So we're bringing together several performers and drumming and dancing and poetry and food wisdom, and just all the things that I feel like my soul hungers for and putting that together in one event. So those are two things that pop to mind right away. Monica: Love it. I love it. And it's so true that what you were talking about in terms of finding those communities, where we can express and celebrate and embody, and again, you know, really practice having, having a relationship with the divine feminine and you know, I'm immediately, I know, I always say divine feminine. And for, for you, you, you always say sacred. So I wonder if you could talk more about that for a minute. Liz: Yes. And I noticed I even slipped into the divine. I do go back and forth because I think I always say, I don't think she cares what you call her. She's just, she's your mom. So call her, she really wants to hear from you, but whatever you call her is fine, but for me the difference. So having grown up in. Um, a Christian household and I'm more conservative Christian household. The word divine is, is happy. It is attached to monotheism and this idea of one God who is male. And it also, frankly, just being honest, it feels unattainable to find within myself sometimes, and certainly unattainable to find in other people, especially those people that challenged me deeply. However, sacred just means holy hallowed feels like I'm throwing everything in. It's like, yes, the divine aspects that are above me, but can I imagine my own body as sacred? I can. I really can. And can I imagine you a sacred, I can, and I can feel that the earth is sacred and the little bird outside my window is sacred. And for me, the sacred, feminine encompasses all of that. So I want to word that holds all of that. And sacred does that more for me. Monica: Yeah. And even those places where, again, those messy places, birth, the ways that those are sacred. Liz: Yes. Monica: We can call those moments sacred. You know, I think of the time I had in that eight, nine month depression as sacred. Liz: Yeah. Monica: It wasn't comfortable, but it was sacred. Yes. Liz: Yeah. I love that. Yes. Yes. You're right. It would be hard to call that divine, although you probably certainly could. Yeah. Yeah. Sacred. I, Monica: Yeah, I really do. I get what you're saying. I often think about, you know, that again, to nuances there's divine and there's sacred and there's many layers and nuances. And that, you know, it's just, it's really, it's really, there's just, there's so much that an and back to all of these nuanced conversations, the next thing I want to ask you about, which could be nuanced, but is, is really about the sacred, feminine being for women only, you know, like what do you, what do you think? Is it for women only the sacred feminine? Liz: Oh gosh, definitely not. Absolutely not. And I want to say to that, that word, feminine that I use, I know it's triggering for people. It's got a lot of baggage in terms of really outdated gender stereotypes around it. And I know that, and I don't, there's also stigma attached to it. I mean, if you think about. The word feminine, the place that I would most likely see it is in the drugstore like feminine hygiene products. Like, Ooh, it's our dirty little secret that we're not going to talk about that women bleed. So I know that that word has a lot of baggage to it. And there's a very stubborn part of me that wants to hold onto it for that reason, because there's a very, there's a reality that female identified bodies and attributes and experiences have been repeatedly historically deemed as lesser. And until we're ready to say, like, we've integrated that completely into ourselves and we've gone back to those things that we've labeled as feminine, whether or not they're feminine is irrelevant, but we've labeled them as such and we've reclaimed them. And we've said, they're just as valuable as anything else. Then I want to hold onto that word until we've done that work. But all that said can my own. direct experience with the sacred feminine, and then the training that I've done through the 13 modes mystery school, we were continuously encouraged to explore the boundaries of fixed reality. Right? All these places that you think are like have hard edges, they're not real. And that certainly goes with gender and it goes with everything that we think is solid, right? It's fluid, it's energy. And so for that reason, it just feels very, it's just illogical to me, it's to say the sacred feminine is only for women. I mean, because when you get into. Realm of exploration. There's a big question of what does it mean to be a woman anyways, like really lets you start to break that down. And does it mean a functioning uterus? Well, what about women that are born with functioning uteruses? What about the children that have known from day one that they are not to? They've been identified to the outside world and are we going to cut off access to the sacred, feminine? What I call the sacred feminine? Because they don't meet a rigid box that was put on them by a patriarchal system. Like I just, that doesn't have anything to do with the sacred feminine for me. And it's honestly taken me some time to work that out. I don't think I was, I've been as clear about that in the past. And part of that is because this is where we need to have nuanced conversations. It's a very real discussion to have about. Women's sex-based rights. That's a real discussion that needs to be had. How do we protect those? Even as we honor everyone and we make space for everybody and the rights of everybody, it's a nuanced conversation to have, and they're important conversations to have, but in the realm of the sacred feminine, that that feels different. That feels like a, of the 3d linear world. Whereas the sacred is so much bigger for me. Monica: Yeah. I totally went to that place where you were like, it took me awhile to get there, right? It's like, of course, because when we live in an increasingly kind of polarized world, it gets harder and harder to have these nuanced conversations, which is why I'm so appreciating, finding tribes of people that are really, you know, just know how to hold space for complexities that know how to. It's just, you know, I'm thinking of an exercise I learned in coaching and we had to sit in a circle. I want to ask you a question too, about mystery school in a minute. I want to go back to that, but to this circle, and by the way, I love the symbology of a circle again, to find feminine in so many ways, because there's not a hierarchy there. And everybody, everyone gets to belong in the circle and see each other. And we all bring something magical to the circle of independently, our gift. So in this circle, we. They gave us a topic and it didn't, they said it didn't matter if you were four against the goal of going around this circle was to start in the circle and be fully self-expressed about where you stood on the subject. And the next person had to say, what I love about that is, and then add onto it. But those exercises. So teach us because if somebody is sitting beside you and they're telling you something, that is the antithesis of what you believe, and you have to say, well, what I love about that is right. Liz: Yes. Monica: And choose, something to love, and then add onto it to the next person that you speak to, you know, or it's just so cool because you start to learn that that really is a practice. That that really is that there really is something to love. Like you said earlier about everything and to go back to the card we chose. I know wasn't that? I mean, Saint Theresa has been such a big part of this conversation today. Oh yeah. Which is the lady of our interior life. I trust the answers I find within me. And I know that the presence of love is real. And to go back to what you were saying about mystery school and the boundaries of fixed reality, it's like, I think we have to remember that we create the world we live in based on our beliefs. And so when we have somebody that's diametrically opposed to what we're posing or processing or whatever it is we're doing, and there's just so much polarization. One of the insights somebody helped me see yesterday. If you don't have kind of a relatedness or a foundation for a conversation, you can tend to break somebody's world without realizing it. Liz: Yes. Monica: And it can be very jarring for people. Liz: Yeah. So, so true. Yeah. And well, and in my, my training too, I mean, there was a very strong agreement field that had to be held to do this kind of work and to play with those boundaries and also recognize that. It's not therapy. It's, you know, it's, it's something different. And I would say that I had my boundaries jarred a lot Broca, you know, and it's, it's sort of like the bottom falling out and it's also ultimately very liberating and you know, it in genders so much for me, so much compassion for the rest of the world, so much compassion. Monica: Yeah. And really seeing like, everybody really is doing their best based on what they have to work with. Yeah. It's so true and compassion for ourselves because in that we also have to face all the ways that we've been arrogant or, you know, it's like, you know, I know, you know, looking at that stuff, it's so uncomfortable. Liz: I know, I know. And so necessary. Monica: So unnecessary and I, you know, and that's really where my question was going with the mystery school was what, how did. Occur for you? Like, did you just see like an invitation about it somewhere and just have it resonate or what happened? And tell me more. Liz: Well, I have a, a law of two, you know what? I actually want to go back really quick. Cause I thought of something. I do this from time to time that I wanted to say about the sacred, feminine being for women. I just wanted to note, cause I took that in one direction, but I've had some amazing people in my Facebook group educate me. And one thing that's valuable to think about is that we're, we're framing this conversation in a very Western American way, but in places like India, for example, the sacred feminine has always been for men. There are millions of men who are deep, devoted to goddesses and always have been, and it's not necessarily tied up in the same way with women's empowerment as you see it here in the west. So. That's just one more way of saying of course she's for everybody, everyone. Monica: Yes. Everyone. I love that. You brought that up. Yes. Thank you. Liz: Yeah. And then as for the mystery school, I kind of have a lot of twos, which is if two, if something shows up in my life twice, it feels like the universe is trying to get my attention once it's like, you know, piques my interest second time. And particularly when it comes through people that I respect. And so I was teaching yoga a few years ago and I had a student tell me, you should check out this mystery school. And I thought, okay, that's cool. And then I forget the second person, but someone else that I knew and loved and respected said, have you heard of this 13 Moons mystery school, you should really check it out. And I was like, okay. Message received. And it was a very intense. Time commitment. It was, we were in temple around the new moon for 12 hours and, you know, for an entire year, and we were in temple on the full moon for the evening. And we, we spent a year of moving through 13 different archetypes of the divine feminine. So really embodying that energy and it was beautifully intense. And I would say catalyzed my growth in a way that I could not have imagined, just couldn't have imagined and gave me many more of those embodied experiences. Like the one that I described at the business conference and became part of my life. And I saw very clearly what is possible when you have a circle, my circle was not. So that's another reason why I say the sacred feminine. It's not only for female identified folk. My circle included a man and he was a beautiful addition to it. And it's very powerful. Yeah. I spent almost an entire year, not knowing anyone's backstory. I think it was a good halfway. I'm not sure. I, I'm not sure to this day that I know everyone's last name. It was incredibly irrelevant. Monica: It was just incredibly irrelevant Liz: That you're doing different work. You are dropping into this oneness and this current and what is possible when you join your hearts together. And so your kids, your, you know, whatever story you've got going on in the outside world, it just isn't, it's not that important when of course those things are important, but you know, in that context you're doing sacred work. And so you're tapping into. This universal life force that is so much larger than what we've constructed in our world. Monica: Yeah. And again, I want to point to the world that you speak of and say, you know, we've been taught to make up when we hear things like that about mystery school or the 13 moons it's like sounds witchy or whatever, right? Like that, that's that stuff that, you know, again, it's like really, really interesting because when you really start peeling back the layers of all the ways we've been conditioned to move away from that and that there's, that's by design. You know, there's a strategy behind that because the more the patriarchy can keep us from understanding because the mystery school I make up teaches you, not only all about the divine, feminine and oneness and compassion and cycles in natural cycles. And. Archetypes and the myths that of course empower and liberate and allow us to embody our sovereignty. Like that is a threat right there to the patriarchy. Liz: Oh yeah. Monica: I mean that is to have fully embodied women who know who they are. O.M.G Liz: Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it's a, it's a threat, I think even to, well, to all the aspects of patriarchy, it's a threat to capitalism, which we've been talking about. I mean, when you're able to see, and to be in that way, you just start to realize that a lot of the noise falls away and you, it becomes so much clearer what really matters. And so that's a real threat to a culture and a society. That's built Monica: Racism, capitalism, sexism on and on all the ways. Again, we divide, divide and conquer nothing by the way is what I want to add. Liz: Okay. Oh, wow. That's such a good point. You're right. Conquer. Nothing. Nothing is ever conquered. Monica: Nothing is ever conquered. So it's another interesting thing is I had a male that I, a man I'll say that I recently spoke to that that said he didn't like the term patriarchy. And he would prefer if people use the term dominator culture. Liz: Yeah. Monica: And, and I do get that. I do understand that. And I also thought that somehow there was something in there though, as a woman that I thought it felt less true for me as a woman, that patriarchy wasn't a useful word because I don't see women necessarily is the dominator culture. Does that make sense? Yes. So there was, and again, nuances let's go back, right. The nuanced conversation. But it just, it was just an interesting thing that just came up for, for me around that term, patriarchy and Liz: Oh yeah, I get that. And I would imagine he was referring to dominator culture makes me think of Riane Eisler is work on partnership studies and she, she's the one that I'm familiar with, who really talked about that or coined that term. And I, I get that, I think, and this is the nuance. It's a yes. And isn't it. If, if dominator culture is used as a word to be more accurate, because patriarchy puts us into a knee-jerk place of it's all the man's fault, it's all demand's fault. Then I get that and yeah, let's use the word dominator culture, because that is true. What is inherent to patriarchy is systems of domination and assuming that that is your primary source of power. However, if it's a, if it's a bypass, meaning. That word makes me feel uncomfortable as a man and I feel attacked and I don't like it. So I don't want you to use that. That's something different. And so I think it's not, I'm wanting to say it's not a conversation we're done having yet. We're not through that. We're not ready. Some people are ready perhaps to say, you know what, the way I see the word patriarchy thrown around, it's just too limiting. It's locks us in this battle of he versus she. But as you wisely named as a woman, it feels accurate for your life experience. Yeah. Yeah. So we're not done, we're not done with that conversation. Monica: Right. And the other thing that comes up for me is, you know, as much as we've lived in this world and this conversation, I think in many ways, many people in the world are just starting or haven't even yet started to have this conversation. Liz: This is so true. I, so last year I spent, uh, we've. We used to live in California for many years, and I spent eight months on the road living in an RV with my husband and two kids traveling the country, looking for our next place to live and what I, it was the most amazing experience by the way. But what, one of the many things I learned is just then we're just talking about America. Here is how many Americas there are. Monica: Yes, Liz: there are so many Americas and the kinds of conversations like this conversation that we're having would be like a foreign language in many of those Americas. We're not all having the same conversation, not by a very, very long stretch. So I, I agree with your, Monica: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm just really sitting with the gratitude, you know, even just as a podcast or like how many conversations, how conversations in themselves have expanded and transformed me. And it makes me think of how important and powerful. Conversations are and how sacred they are. Liz: Yes. Monica: All of these conversations, no matter how difficult or uncomfortable are so valuable and, you know, kind of also back to like, if words create worlds, then so do conversations, you know, conversations, expand and change and transform our worlds. And we think sometimes transformation is this big thing that's out there. But, you know, it's like it's a conversation away is what I want to say. Liz: Hmm. I love that. I love that. I was even thinking too about this notion of the things that we've labeled feminine. And one of the things that's been negatively labeled feminine is being talkative, like talking too much and this and that and bizarre and saying, I know, I know it's a treat to be in dialogue or to have lots to say to each other as somehow somehow bad. Monica: Yeah. That's strange. It is. It's so, so strange. So I've loved this conversation. I've loved this nuanced conversation, this sacred conversation. And so, you know, Liz, there's so many directions that I could go, but. My final kind of question. Is, is there any question that I haven't asked that you wish I would Liz: I'm thinking Monica: Or that you want me to ask, or even if it's not a question, if there's just something else that you want to bring into the space. Liz: There is one more theme that I thought would be nice to say. I mean, again, I, I think I said before that I could go on and on about who the sacred feminine is and these different aspects of her. But one more that I like to mention is this, that she is real. We treat spirituality as something out here, like up above us. Like, I don't know, it's not, it's not always accessible, but in the realm of the sacred, feminine, Concepts of eminence associated with her, not like eminent, like something's going to happen, but eminence meaning all present, present in all things. And in many spiritual traditions, you find your gods are transcendent. They exist outside of you. And I think she does that as well, perhaps, but she is also eminent. She is in all things at all times. So that makes her very, very real. So you can go and hug a tree and have that connection instantly. I think if you are in a really bad place, one of the best things that I know to do is to take your shoes off and put your bare feet on the earth. And if you're in a really bad place, go lay down and let yourself be held because she's real. She's right under there underneath your feet all the time. And she will hold you. And I make that suggestion honoring. Insect brothers and sisters, which are far more plentiful here in Virginia than they were in California, but it's worth it, you know, lay down and let yourself be held and feel the realness of her. It's very grounding. Monica: It's very grounding. Liz: And I think it, yeah, Monica: It's very grounding. And of course the dogs are barking in the background just to. Um, Liz: I think they're affirming that statement. Monica: I think they are too Liz: Well. And she's there. Right? I mean, in the reality of it, she's in the mess, as you talked about she's she's right there in the mess, she seems in all of it. Monica: That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, in back to back to the embodiment, right? Like that tangible sensual way that we've been conditioned or separated from ourselves and from nature, you know, it's like that sacred rebellion. That that's the other word that comes up for me, which came to me through Kristin Lynch who actually will have an episode out. Or we did have an episode this past week on her. She has goddess talk podcast, but Kristen Lynch was talking about sacred rebellion and in all the ways, again, that we think of that. The patriarchy, there's the antithesis, which is really how we started this conversation out and kind of like, I always talk about the fact that we live in the upside downs is sometimes the way that we have to, you know, turn the world right side up is to do the opposite of what we've been taught. And so taking your shoes off, taking a break, creating space, getting into the being of it, versus the doing, doing, doing up in our head. Yes. That's that signal to get quiet, open our hearts, reconnect to mother earth. Yes. Put our bare feet in the ground. Liz: Yeah. And I think when I go back to that word, eminence, that. Best shot of feeling that energy that I call the sacred feminine within ourselves too. And then we recognize it in us and that's how we get home. Monica: Yay. And that's how we get home. Yeah. Well, Liz, this has just been a total honor. I'm like. I already knew that you were such a sister in so many ways, but now I'm going to hound you for your personal phone number. Liz: Done, done I've been waiting for you to ask actually, Monica: So funny. All right. And so there's so many great resources here that I know Liz has turned us on to. So those women out there, I know I am totally going to go check out this 13 Moons mystery school and so many other just great mentioned. So we'll be sure to have those in the show notes and prefer sure. Check out Revelry, you know, because even if you are not able to attend this year, I have a feeling that there's going to be so much more happening around that and how women circle and celebrate and. Danced together and gather together so more Liz: On that. That's the hope that it will, we'll keep honoring this, the turns of the wheel, you know, the seasonal celebrations, this next one, that's coming up on September 25th. So I don't know if that's going to air if this will air before that or not, but yeah, it should keep going. Monica: Yes. Yes. And. Any of you who loved this episode, please, please, please, please check out Liz's podcast because it is so worth listening to, so again, we'll be sure to have her podcast link in the show notes, and until next time more to be revealed, We hope you enjoyed this episode. For more information, please visit us@jointherevelation.com and be sure to download our free gift subscribed to our mailing list or leave us a review on iTunes. We thank you for your generous listening and as always more to be revealed.